First Fruits

Farm Manager Katharine Wilson works at the Westwood site. (Photo by Sarah King)

One of the commonwealth’s largest urban farms occupies 5 acres of fertile soil at a corner of Brook Road and Westwood Avenue on Richmond’s North Side. Union Presbyterian Seminary provided the land, known as the Westwood site, as part of a 10-year renewable, no-cost lease, and Shalom Farms has been growing fruit and vegetables since spring on a 1-acre field. The plot has yielded more than 8,000 pounds of produce.

“It’s been a great season,” says Katharine Wilson, the staffer dedicated to farming the location full-time. “This land is incredible — very fertile.”

Dominic Barrett, executive director of Shalom Farms, says the nonprofit had been looking for a location in the city for several years before the opportunity arose at the Westwood property, just as Shalom moved its larger farm from Goochland to Powhatan County. Wilson, the farm manager, works the site with the help of volunteers, many of whom are seminary students, staff and alumni. On the left side of the field are six varieties of blueberry bushes that volunteers from Altria Group helped prep and plant for next year.

The Westwood farm has three summer fields and two fall fields, she says. The summer field produced melons, tomatoes, green beans, cucumber, squash and zucchini. Some of the fields are filled with grass, which Wilson says is a cover crop to help increase soil fertility and protect the plot over the winter. The fall field contains broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

“We are certified naturally grown, which is essentially the organic standard,” Wilson says.

About half of the Westwood site produce goes to Feed More, while the other half is distributed through Shalom Farms programs such as the Grown to Go Community Mobile Market and the Healthy Corner Store initiative.

Wilson says roughly half of Mobile Market sales have been through SNAP, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for families in need.

“They get double the produce for their dollar,” she says. “We're really trying to increase those numbers this season.”